Guest Lecture by Mr. Bharat Shah

In the medium to long run markets will remain bullish and by the end of this decade the BSE Sensex will reach 6 digits. Though it may sound startling, this was the first message that Mr. Bharat Shah, CEO and Managing partner at ASK Investment, gave us during his guest lecture on 21st September 2010. Mr. Shah stated that this valuation of the markets is based on the growth numbers and opportunities that are present in the economy. Historically if we see the markets have grown by a multiple of ten in each decade- rising from few hundred points in the 1980s to the current five digit levels. But the 6 digit forecast is not merely based on the past trends, rather it is based on the expectation of growth that is still to occur.

In terms of Purchasing Power Parity, India produces around 7.5% of the world's total GDP. If we compare the price that we pay in the market for Indian businesses it is around 2.5% of the total capital markets. Also the global portfolios have Indian presence at a mere 0.35%. Hence we see a clear value-price gap in the numbers. Also the value itself is an upward rising number. This is not because the GDP of other countries is not going to grow or show a negative growth but because India's GDP will grow considerably faster than most other economies. So as the price and value will converge, we will see a CAGR of around 18% in the Sensex taking it to 6 digit levels in the next decade.

Let us dig deeper into the growth story. Amongst the EMEs, Brazil is driven mostly by agriculture, China by its manufacturing and Russia by its resources. Only India is driven by agriculture, manufacturing, services and  (to a small extent) resources.  The huge domestic consumption of India (around 83% of GDP) fuels this growth. This also means India is much less exposed to shocks from the developed economies than its BRIC peers. Being a country with an average age of 29 years, India has higher energy to  pursue higher levels of growth. Mr. Shah said that with a better governance India can achieve a double digit growth rate within the next three years. 

Mr. Shah also gave SIMSREE students some cardinal rules to be followed if they want to invest in the equity markets. He said that investing is a very serious activity which should not be subject to the roll of the dice. The trick is  to identify a good business, ascertain the capabilities of management and most importantly to buy gold at the price of silver. This is one sure way of making huge profits in the equity markets. It requires a disciplined approach towards valuation and a rational view about the markets. At the conclusion of the lecture all of us were very optimistic visualizing the four decades of wealth creation that lie in front of us. 

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Guest Lecture by Mr. Mangesh Vaitla

Our esteemed alumnus and Director at C2L BIZ Solutions (HK) Pvt Ltd, Mr. Mangesh Vaitla took a guest lecture on 17th September 2010. The general area of discussion was how different management specializations have their  own application in the field of IT and his lecture changed the way most of us look at the IT sector today.  The learning that made a mark was that IT is not all about coding. According to Mr. Vaitla, IT is all about making use of the technological advances to make businesses more efficient. Be it Sales, Marketing, Finance, Human Resources or Operations, each have their own place in IT and IT has its own place in each and every one of them.

Big businesses globally are changing the way they look at IT. In many cases they do not treat it as a separate vertical anymore. Rather, IT is seen as the core which will ensure processes, which are unique to the firm, are at the center around which the personnel can rotate. This ensures that even though the people keep changing the fundamental knowledge and practices of a firm remain intact and are passed from one set of employees to another. Many firms, therefore, are now unwilling to outsource some of the critical parts of their business.

Sharing his thoughts on outsourcing, Mr. Vaitla said that most of the outsourcing from USA is based on need. Without the cost effectiveness provided by outsourcing, it would be very difficult for many firms to maintain same level of profitability. Hence the demand for IT outsourcing and in turn the demand for Indian IT services sector shall not see a huge dip in the coming years. However, according to Mr. Vaitla, Indian IT companies should not focus only on outsourcing which makes a huge chunk of their profits today. He said that it is time for Indian firms to move to a product oriented approach and spend more on R&D. Some companies have already started taking steps in that direction. We thank Mr. Vaitla for giving us such a deep understanding of the sector which has been one of the major driving forces of the India growth story.

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Guest Lecture by Mr. Kapil Khandelwal

On the 5th of September, SIMSREE proudly welcomed our prestigious alumnus, Mr Kapil Khandelwal on campus for a guest lecture. Mr Khandelwal is an alumnus from the batch of 1992-1994 and is someone who regularly visits the campus for guiding the students with insights he has gained through his long career in the industry. Currently he is the Director and CEO at Makven Capital and is also an Independent Board Member at Healthcare and Life Sciences Venture. He works closely with the ministry of Human Resource Development and the HRD minister Mr Kapil Sibal. He is one of the business leaders in healthcare and life sciences and information, communications and technology (ICT). He serves several boards in the sector and brings unique operations and consulting experience of connecting the healthcare and life sciences value chain from early drug discovery, drug development, care delivery, healthcare providers and intermediaries and payers. He has over 15 years of industry and consulting experience. Mr Khandelwal holds the unique distinction of being among the elite club of Chief Information Security Officers (CISOs) in the early-phase drug discovery in the world. 

During his interaction with the students, Mr Khandelwal talked about the three economic depressions he has faced in his working life and told us how he tackled them and came out on top in all three cases. He also made us realise that the new education policy that allows foreign universities to set up shop in the country will mean that we will be facing a new kind of competition in the job market and believe me, it was a sobering thought! He also urged all of us to think about some international tie-ups for the institute and I’m sure steps will be taken in this direction soon. The session in its entirety was a great experience and we sincerely hope that more such sessions take place in the future to make us more aware about the ground realities of the business world.

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Guest Lecture by Mr. Boman Moradian

Mr. Boman Moradian, 1975 Alumnus of JBIMS, Proprietor Telesis Consultancy Services, Director Essel Propack, Director Garware Polyester Ltd, took a lecture with us  on 31^st August 2010. The topic of the lecture was “Introduction to Operations Management”. 

The audience which included both the seniors and the juniors were totally absorbed in the 4 hour long lecture. Mr. Moradian made use of three examples- an automobile plant, a person being checked into a flight and the movement of documents in the creation of a new credit card to explain how the basic process flow remains the same, regardless of the unit being worked upon.

Mr. Moradian started by telling us that text books are unnecessary to truly understand Operations Management. Instead you need to simplify your thinking. In fact, that was the key point in his lecture- simplify, simplify. He recommended a number of books which would help us bring about a change in the way we think. Mr. Moradian also turned several myths on their heads, such as, buying new machinery to increase production and efficiency.  He said that new machinery rarely solves problems, rather it creates new ones, because it has never been tested before. Not only that, it is very expensive and does not give adequate returns on the investment. Instead, he said that it was much more sensible to buy one generation old machinery which is in good condition.

Mr. Moradian also explained the basic terms of Operations Management and the basic concept of a process consisting of a number of operations. He also explained the three basic measures- the Credibility measure, the Opportunity measure and the ROCE measure to us.  Mr. Moradian also explained some basic truths to us, like, the Customer is the CEO.

All in all, it was an amazing lecture – interesting and informative. We hope we get the opportunity to have more lectures with Mr. Moradian. 

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Forex Workshop by Mr V. Rajagopal

Mine! Yours! Thanks nothing! Yours or Mine? These were the thoughts going around in the heads of the second year finance students at the end of a two day Forex workshop conducted at SIMSREE. Mr. V. Rajagopal, once chief dealer-Forex treasury in ICICI and Kotak Mahindra bank, introduced Forex markets and its various terminologies on Monday 29th August 2010. In a four hour session he explained the working of international Forex markets and the role of a dealer.

On Tuesday 30th August, he along with his colleague Mr. Subramanium conducted a day long workshop. In a setup which had 8 different banks with their respective currency dealers, information screens and phone lines, Mr. Rajagopal created a simulated Forex market. He kept all the dealers on their toes by constantly changing the macro-economic conditions. At the end of the session the students were both thrilled and exhausted. The workshop helped clear many concepts that had been studied in textbooks but never practiced. 

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